The Messenger

The Beginning

“When I was born in a little Kentucky cabin up there, the Angel of the Lord come in the window and stood there. There was a Pillar of Fire.”

The dawn was just starting to pierce the darkness of the cool April sky. The single, wooden window rose open to let the morning light into the tiny one-room cabin. A robin standing next to the window seemed to be especially excited this morning and was singing to the top of his lungs. Inside the cabin, a youthful Charles Branham put his hands into his brand-new pair of overalls and looked down at his 15 year-old wife. “We will call his name William,” said the father.

Into the window came a supernatural Light. The Light moved through the room and hovered over the bed where the baby was just born. This was the same Light that brought the Hebrew children out of Egypt. It was the same Light that met Paul on his road to Damascus. And It would go on to lead this little baby to call a Bride of Christ out of the world. That Light was none other than the Angel of the Lord, the Pillar of Fire; and It had once again appeared to man.

And in there, in this little log cabin, that morning on April the 6th, the midwife opened up the window so the light could shine in to let Mama and Papa see what I looked like. Then a Light about the size of a pillow came whirling through the window. It circled around where I was, and went down on the bed. Several of the mountain people were standing there. They were crying.

The humble home was in the hills of southern Kentucky, near the small town of Burkesville. The date was April 6, 1909. The baby was the first of ten children that would be born to Charles and Ella Branham.

It was not long before the Angel of the Lord visited young William Branham again.

When he was a young child, the Angel first spoke to him, saying that he would live his life near a city called New Albany. He went into the house and told his mother what had just happened. Like any mother, she didn’t think much of the story and put him to bed to calm his young nerves. Two years later, his family moved to Jeffersonville Indiana, just a few miles from the southern Indiana city of New Albany.

The Angel again spoke to the young prophet a few years later. It was a quiet September day with the warm sun shining through the colorful autumn leaves. The young lad was limping as he carried two buckets of water down the trail. A corncob was tied under his injured toe to keep it out of the dirt. He sat down to rest in the shade of a tall poplar tree. The tears were streaming from his eyes as he cried about his misfortune: His friends were enjoying themselves at the local fishing hole, and he was stuck packing water for his dad. Suddenly, a wind began to swirl in the tree above him. He wiped his eyes and stood to his feet. He heard the sound of leaves blowing in the wind…but there was no wind. He looked up, and about halfway up the poplar tree, something was swirling the dry leaves.

Suddenly a Voice spoke, “Don’t drink or smoke or defile your body in any way, there’ll be a work for you to do when you get older.” The frightened seven-year-old boy dropped his buckets and ran to his mother.

Like the prophet Samuel, God had again spoken to a child.

A few weeks later, he was playing marbles with his younger brother. A strange feeling came over him. He looked out over the Ohio River and saw a beautiful bridge. Sixteen men fell to their death as the bridge crossed the river. The young prophet had seen his first vision. He told his mother, and she wrote down his story. Years later, 16 men fell to their death as the Second Street bridge in Louisville, Kentucky was being built over the Ohio River.

The Lord was showing him visions of the future. And like the prophets before him, the visions never failed.